Airshack

So what do you do when your TI-99/4A system is expanded as far as possible?  Simple, start another system!  I'm not sure where I'll take this one next, but so far...

.. currently my beige "portable system" has a TIPI/32K with RPi ZERO W and a speech synthesizer.  Hopefully someday the F-18A MK2 will finally hit the market.  This entry will be updated if/when anything changes!
 
 

By the beginning of 2015, I had upgraded to a Lotharek HxC and an F18A, dropped on a Lantronix UDS-10 and started hitting Heatwave BBS...

By the middle of 2015 I added a PS/2 keyboard, and an extra disk drive and WiFi capability to my UDS-10...

Around the middle of 2016 I had a modem, which was not used much, and I think the HDX card (which has since been removed).  It was around this time that I obtained a TI compatible Wico trackball and customized it to match the TI.  I also added a custome control panel with digital thermometer showing the TI's running temperature.

It was about this time that I had already started removing stuff from my system and replaced older stuff with some real cool goodies!  So now by the end of 2018, (as shown below) the Modem was gone, the UDS-10 was gone and was replaced by a TIPI giving my TI mouse support and gigabytes of storage.

At the end of 2020 not much had changed except some cosmetic stuff and an external SD card holder for the P-Box TIPI unit.

... so now that it's basically expanded as far as I can go, what could I possibly do?  
 
 
 
 

What drives a guy to use a computer that is 40 years old?  Nostalgia & fun are two reasons.
Back in 1981 or 1982 I got myself a TI-99/4A console, later Extended BASIC a "Program Recorder" (Cassette player) and then built it up little by little.  This was what my system looked like in 1985...
 

The peripheral expansion box (as shown above) only had a 90K disk drive, 32K and RS-232 card.  By today's standards that's laughable!
By 1987, I had to "downsize" due to my firstborn taking over my den space.  So I built a hutch, popped the 19" monitor inside, added a lighted printer bay and was happy for a while as seen below.
 

By 1990 I had downsized again due to my second born taking over more space in the bigger place.  In the photo below I was stuck in the corner of the master bedroom as seen in the photo below.
 
 

This photo was the last photo of my TI system before I got out of the TI and moved on to the "PC".
Years went by, computers came and went in my life, and then I found and played with Classic 99 the best PC based TI-99/4A emulator (IMHO)... and then it happened, I got bit by the TI bug... a second time.

In 2013 I got a TI, speech synthesizer, Nano-PEB and a Supercart and thought I'd be happy... it didn't quite work out like that.

By 2014 I was on my third Nano-PEB and came to the conclusion they were low priced junk, but I'm thankful, it forced me into getting a P-Box.

By the end of 2014 I had a P-Box and a spare and then I started "going to town"..